Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner has taken his fourth MotoGP pole position in a row and his tenth of the season today at Twin-Ring Motegi, nicking it from Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo and smashing his own outright lap record in the process.
Lorenzo had done the difficult-if-not-impossible on the YZR-M1 and nipped in front of the Australian to top the table with five minutes left, breaking the circuit record himself with a 1'46.523 but Stoner was having none of it and lapped in 1'45.267 to seal top spot.
Andrea Dovizioso, on the second Repsol bike, nipped ahead of Dani Pedrosa's HRC machine right at the end of the session but is half a second off the pace while the Spaniard is another two-tenths in arrears at a circuit which holds painful memories.
Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi stuck in a flyer just as the chequered flag came out, going round in 1'46.467 only for big-mate Marco Simoncelli to nick sixth off him with his last lap. The large-barneted San Carlo Honda man got off the floor after a turn-five crash and lapped in 1'46.211 on his second bike.
Rizla Suzuki's Alvaro Bautista took seventh place just ahead of Hector Barbera's privateer Mapfre Ducati with Nicky Hayden, on the works GP11.1, rounds out the top ten and is 1.5s off the pace. Hiro Aoyama is putting on a good show for his home fans, finishing the session in 11th.
Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow moved into 12th place towards the end of the hour and is only fractionally slower than Hayden. He heads his team-mate Colin Edwards who walked away from a crash at turn three at the start of the session.
